Brooklyn Owes the Charmer Under Me Sunday, June 05, 2005

A day in Bay Ridge with Wrong Turn Jr., among uncles. The occasion was a street fair, which reminded me of the Atlantic Antic that terrorized greater Brooklyn for one Sunday afternoon every September. Amateur musicians cranked up to 20, tube-sock stands, Native American ephemera, dried-to-a-flake sausages...all that and heat exhaustion. Still, always a treat to meet up with the uncles and buddies (including some frequent commentors to these pages), and Wrong Turn Jr. got to see his weak-willed old man eat one of those crummy selfsame sausages. And such small portions!

I haven't opened a can of worms in a while, so here goes. This follows on the God discussion below, and attempts to address an argument Jennifer made in the comments. Or, rather, an observation, which I have heard from several women: They feel alienated from the Church because the priesthood is closed to them. The larger argument, in some cases, is that the Church keeps women down.

The other day I happened across the best pro-Church argument on the topic I've ever read: Michael Novak in First Things from a few years ago. His case, and the Church's, rests on an idea that simply doesn't obtain in larger society much anymore: That the differences between men and women aren't cultural constructs, they are essential. In other words, "male and female He made them," for a divine purpose.

In that light, the male-ness of the priest--and for that matter, the maleness of Christ--take on tremendous significance. Novak argues that Christ's maleness is crucial to the understanding of his mission, in part because he was preaching traditionally "female" virtues to a predominately masculine culture. Part of the "scandal" of Christianity, then, was that a man was telling other men to be...less masculine, at least as far as masculinity was understood back then. Following that logic, the masculinty of priests is crucial, Novak argues, because they act as stand-ins for Christ on the altar.

Novak's piece is much subtler than I can convey: His restatement of John Paul II's "theology of the body," regarding the complementarity of the sexes, is gorgeously presented. At the very least, I would hope it puts paid to the idea that the Church hates women. I urge you to read it in full when you have time.

Do I buy his argument? Not exactly. On the one hand, Novak is a smart man and he makes an elegant presentation. But any case for not ordaining women is going to come down to an argument from absence: Christ didn't specifically call any women as disciples (despite the critical presence of Mary and her gal-pals). Is that really an airtight position to take? Christ didn't leave reams of quotes about abortion, either. The metaphysics, in the case of ordination, are gorgeous, but they sometimes seem reverse-engineered from current positions instead of proceeding naturally from scripture.

Moreover, I understand the frustration and impatience of women who feel the calling but get left at the altar, as it were. In the modern world, it takes the faith of a saint to say, "You know what? Men and women are fabulously different, and the priesthood just wasn't meant for my half of the species." I recognize my modernist blinkers here, and I think the traditionalist arguments have tremendous power. But I don't think they're satisfying.

Hearing all this, a longtime friend of Wrong Turn Journal made an interesting counter-point: A lot of people get dealt shitty hands when it comes to the religious life--not just women who want to be priests. (I'll edit him a bit, since this passage came from an off-the-cuff email I'm not sure he wants quoted directly.) Basically: Novak argues, whatever lot we get in life, we have to keep our eyes on Heaven. But some people are blessed with much stronger faith than others, making the journey that much easier for them. And sometimes God seems to demand less from certain people than others: King David, for instance. David had Uriah killed to get his hands on Bathsheba--but at the price of a fairly easy penance, David still got everything he wanted and continued to be one of God's great heroes. So only men can be priests. Unfairness abounds.

Again--not a perfect answer. But it resonates.

@ 9:37:00 PM,

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